


Moonlight Rhapsody

by tieria



Series: Pink-Clover Melodies [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Arc V Secret Santa, F/F, Idol AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 08:09:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5532056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tieria/pseuds/tieria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were a lot of things that Serena knew- that 7:30 AM classical literature was hell, that her roommate really needed to learn how to restock the fridge, and that Hiiragi Yuzu sang some of the best songs she’d ever heard in her life. Now, if only Serena knew how to make a good first impression.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moonlight Rhapsody

**Author's Note:**

> This is a secret santa gift for djinnequips on tumblr! I went with the sereyuzu prompt, I hope you have a happy holiday season!  
> The lines of the song Yuzu sings here are taken from momoiro clover z's DNA Rhapsody (which is a group song but shhh).

Everything started with a CD.

There was a record store on the edge of campus that Serena passed by on the way to her apartment. She had never gone in before- she had a decent collection of music at home, but transporting it back and forth from campus was too much of a pain to bother getting any more. But today, the display in the front window had changed.

She walked past it, stopped, backtracked, her eye caught by the overwhelmingly pink display. The centerpiece was a poster with a girl with equally pink hair striking a pose, microphone in hand. “Melodious Diva, Hiiragi Yuzu- new album, on sale November Sixth”.

Serena had heard a few of Yuzu’s songs on the radio and found herself absently humming along as she walked to class. They were a bit closer to bubblegum pop than she usually liked, but Serena could acknowledge a good song when she heard one, and Hiiragi Yuzu just happened to have several of them.

Serena gave the poster a long look, then another. And, what the hell, she thought, she’d worked the long shift last week, and the extra pocket money sat heavy in her wallet. She’d need something to listen to while she worked on her classical literature essay anyway, she rationalized as she pushed her way into the shop.

:::

In Serena’s defense, she hadn’t actually expected to _like_ the album so much. But one repetition through it turned into two and two into three and suddenly it was four in the morning and Serena had descended into looping the music videos over and over again, her essay barely a paragraph longer.

Moonlight Rhapsody in particular ended up on repeat for a solid hour while Serena attempted to make progress on the essay. Eventually she forced herself to change the song- she kept getting distracted thinking up choreography for it, and that was the last thing she needed while staring down a deadline.

By the time Serena finished her essay, it was practically time to head off to class- but as she stood to leave, something fell to the floor, and Serena bent down to pick it up. In her hand was a cell phone strap of one of Yuzu’s mascots, a tiny faerie emerging from a flower. For lack of anything better to do with it, Serena tied it onto the strap of her messenger bag, pastel charm bright against the worn brown leather.

:::

Serena came home one evening a few weeks later to find nothing in the fridge but half of a cheesecake. With a long sigh, Serena turned and left the apartment, heading over to the small grocery store down the road. She needed staples- frozen food, fruit, rice, and who knows, she thought, dropping some fish that was on sale into her basket, maybe this weekend she’d even try to cook something again.

As she made her way back down the aisles towards the front, Serena turned and was faced with a poster advertising… Melodious Diva posters. Serena stared, taking in the details. She didn’t need one. She didn’t even have posters on her walls at home, so what was she going to do with one now?

She walked away. She stopped, turned back, stared at it again.

“I don’t need it,” she said. But she wanted one, and her impulse control had certainly seen better days.

“Just this,” she told herself, tucking a poster tube under her arm, “and then no more for the rest of the month. The rest of the year.”

:::

“So, Serena!” someone called from the other side of the classroom, and Serena glared, still half-asleep. Sawatari sauntered up to her from the door, too-wide grin plastered on his face. It was seven thirty in the morning, and if there was one thing that Serena didn’t have the patience for, it was Sawatari and his grandstanding. Unless, on the off chance that he wanted to talk about their semester project-

“What do you want, Sawatari,” she asked, the words barely out of her mouth before Sawatari was crowding into her personal space. As she pushed him back none-too-gently, he said, loudly- “So, I hear you’re a Melodious Diva fan.”

Serena’s head whipped around the classroom- thankfully empty except for the one guy whose music she could hear from his headphones halfway across the room. Sawatari spluttered, having gotten whipped with her ponytail. Serena adamantly refused to feel bad.

She went instinctively for the denial, but the Bloom Diva charm was clearly visible on her bag, resting atop her desk.

“So what if I am?” she said, crossing her arms, and the grin was back on Sawatari’s face. He waved something around too fast for Serena to catch anything more than a blur of color.

“So,” he said, “I have a ticket to her concert next weekend. But! My dad’s dragging me off to some political party instead.”

Serena shot him an unimpressed look. With a dramatic hand though his hair completely at odds with his next words, Sawatari replied, “I know, I’m distraught. But my loss is your gain. I’m willing to sell this to you for exactly what I paid for it.”

“No luck, Sawatari. I already have a ticket.”

Sawatari whipped out a piece of plastic in a second, waving it in front of Serena’s face, too close for her eyes to focus on. “But,” he said, “do you have a VIP backstage pass?”

“How much?” It was out of her mouth before she had the power to stop it, and Sawatari grinned like the cat who’d caught the canary.

Serena swore under her breath and pulled her wallet from her bag. So much for not spending any more money, she thought. She’d only managed to last a week.

:::

“Hey, Serena!” her roommate called from the shared center room, and Serena didn’t have the time to reply before the door was swinging open wide. “Where’d you put my-“

Sora stopped in the doorframe, staring at Serena- or more accurately, at the wall above her. The Melodious Diva poster was the first thing you saw when you walked in the room, and Serena _really_ should have thought the placement through a bit better.

But her desk too had started to attract clutter- on one side of her laptop alone there was the cd, then the few singles she had gone back to buy, then the stack of extras that had come with the cds, all next to a currently empty coffee mug with the Melodious logo emblazoned on the side.

“Woah,” Sora said, candy frozen halfway to his lips, “Didn’t know you were a Melodious Diva fan.”

“If you tell anyone, you’re dead,” Serena bit back instinctively.

Sora just shrugged at her, finally popping the hard candy into his mouth. “Yeah, whatever. Anyway, do you have my scissors?”

The sharpened blades peeked out from underneath the sweatshirt she had just bought, and Serena pulled them out and handed them over to Sora before he could see the Melodious logo printed in the corner of it. Judging by Sora’s amused expression, he saw it anyway.

“Thanks,” Sora said, then left the room, closing the door behind him. Serena sighed and turned back to her laptop, scrolling down the wall of text slowly.

It would be one thing, she thought, re-reading the interview, if Hiiragi Yuzu was just some stuck-up idol brat thrown into it as a kid for the fame and the money and the fans- but as far as Serena could tell, Yuzu was just legitimately a nice girl who liked singing and entertainment.

A creak from behind her signaled the door was open again. Serena turned, and Sora popped his head in. “If you ever want an autograph or anything, by the way,” he said, waving the scissors around in a manner that would have more responsible adults worried for his safety, “I have five.”

“Oh, okay, thanks,” Serena said, hoping he would just _get out of her room_ before she was forced to reevaluate all the merchandise she’d bought over the last month.

The door closed, and Sora’s words sunk in. “Wait, what do you _mean_ you have five?”

Sora opened the door again. “I told you, right? I lived in Maiami for a while as a kid. Yuzu was my neighbor. I got her to sign a lot of stuff because everyone was convinced she’d make it as an idol. So if you ever want to know stuff about her, I can tell you.”

It was tempting. It was more than that- it was every little thing she wanted to know about Yuzu laid out before her like a feast.

“No,” Serena said, “It’s probably not a good idea. I’m meeting her at the concert tonight. I think it would be kind of weird if I knew what the name of her childhood cat was or something like that. Weird and kind of creepy.”

“Their names were En and Core,” Sora supplied unhelpfully, “and they were the neighborhood strays. So not technically her cats.”

“Weird and kind of creepy,” Serena repeated, “Now get out of my room, I have to work on this project.”

(To exactly no one’s surprise, she didn’t end up working on the project at all.)

:::

Before she left, Serena threw on the Melodious Diva sweater and the first skirt that looked like it matched that had actual pockets. By the time she made it, there wasn’t long before the concert started, and Serena waited with an odd sort of anticipation.

Yuzu burst onto the stage with a flickering of lights and a burst of glitter, singing an upbeat new single. Her lives, Serena thought, were just as good as they said, and Yuzu handled all the choreography without losing her breath, hit her cues without losing connection with the audience.

By the time Moonlight Rhapsody came up, Serena was thoroughly caught up in the thrill of it, waving her pink glow stick in time with the beat.

“ _I’ll give your back a push, kick you when you need it, be the one who’ll always love you- and if you still say that you’re alone, I’ll tell you, ‘You idiot!” and beat it into you!”_

Serena hummed along to the lyrics, flashes of an alternate choreography playing in the back of her thoughts.

 _“Take my hand, hold it tight, and let’s go!”_ Yuzu sang, pointing out into the crowd to a place nowhere near Serena. She wasn’t disappointed- it’s not like she was twelve years old anymore. She didn’t come to the concert with the intentions of getting her hopes up. She was just going to be natural, and see whatever was going to happen through to the end.

:::

By the time Serena fought her way against the crowd into the backstage area, there was already a small group gathered around the security guards, flashing their VIP passes.

They were ushered quickly into a backstage area, larger than a fitting room but still cramped with the amount of fans crammed into it. Yuzu was waiting inside, and after a brief introduction, the other fans started gushing and asking questions-

“Yuzurin! Your best of indies album was really good, do you have any plans on performing any of those songs live again?”

“I loved your photoshoot with KERA last spring, do you think you’ll do another one?”

Yuzu replied to each question easily and gracefully deflected every compliment, and _wow_ , Serena thought, _I’m so out of my league here_.

“I own all your merchandise,” one guy blurted out, apparently shameless, and Yuzu just giggled and thanked him.

Serena felt a sudden rush of relief run through her, because at the very least she wasn’t as bad as that guy. But then again, she thought, the guy was literally covered in Melodious Diva products, from the hat on his head to the pink laces on his shoes, so maybe she was setting the bar a little too low there.

She was so absorbed in that observation that she didn’t notice Yuzu staring right at her expectantly until their gaze met.

“Um… What?”

“You’ve been really quiet,” Yuzu said, and Serena abruptly realized that she absolutely did want to get her hopes up because _wow_ did Yuzu make her feel that she actually cared about what Serena had to say, “What’s your name?”

Serena, flustered by the unexpected attention, managed, “Uh, my name’s Serena. I really like Moonlight Rhapsody. I, uh, wrote some choreography for it, actually.”

And _what the hell, Serena_ , she thought to herself, _I haven’t done any dancing since high school_. Sure, she’d _thought_ about making some choreography for Moonlight Rhapsody, and it was better than saying that she just _felt_ the song, but she hadn’t intended to walk into the meeting and have the first thing out of her mouth be a flat-out lie.

“Oh,” Yuzu said, “That sounds really interesting! You should film it and send it to me when you’re done! I’m always looking for cool things that fans do.”

 “No, well, yeah, I can-“ Serena tried to summon up a reply to that, only to have her chance stolen away just as she thought of a proper response.

“That’s all the time we have tonight,” one of the attendants called, and the reluctant group was forced to file out of the room. Serena is relegated to the back of the line again.

“Bye,” Yuzu said, waving to her as she was halfway out the door, and Serena waved back, hoped she was smiling closer to a normal smile and not the strained, slightly manic smile it felt like.

“See you later,” Serena replied as the door was shut behind her, and Serena resisted the urge to slam her head against the door.

“ _See you later_ ,” she repeated, _“See you later_. No one let me talk ever again.”

:::

“You look worse than usual today,” Sawatari said, sliding into the desk next to her. Serena just glared- but sometime during the semester, it seemed that Sawatari had grown immune, and he stared back with an unimpressed expression. “What, was the concert a failure?”

With a vehement shake of her head, Serena replied, “No. The concert was great.”

“Then what, was the Melodious Diva secretly evil or-“

“No, she was fine. Great. Perfect,” Serena said.

“Then what was it?” Sawatari asked, and Serena dropped her head into her arms, lamenting her inability to make a proper first impression.

“Just drop it, Sawatari,” she said, and she sensed more than saw Sawatari’s following shrug.

“Whatever, not my problem. Anyway. You did the poster for the presentation Wednesday already, right?”

In that moment, Serena was glad her head was already in her arms, because her expression was probably one of pure, panicked horror.

“Yeah,” she said slowly, “It’s almost done. Do you want me to send you a picture or something?”

“I could probably make the speech up on the spot,” he replied, and Serena turned her head to glare daggers at him again. The effect was about as nonexistent as the last time.

“I’ll send you a picture tonight. Or tomorrow morning. I don’t know how long finishing it will take,” she said in her harshest tone, the one she knew was capable of breaking up arguments in a sentence.

With a dramatic shrug, Sawatari relented. Serena relaxed, just a fraction- her classical literature grade wasn’t lost just yet.

:::

Serena wandered into the campus bookstore after class, looking for a blank poster board. Yuzu’s smiling face was plastered across the magazines lined next to the registers, like a personal insult. Serena glared at the magazines, then grabbed one and dropped it with the rest of her things.

She silently dared the bored-looking cashier to say something about the magazine, but no witty remark came. And, with a glance down, Serena saw why- it was a fashion magazine. It was probably completely normal for college girls to pick up fashion magazines, Serena thought, then felt ridiculous for expecting anyone to react to her doing something as inconspicuous as buying a magazine in the first place.

Serena stalked out of the bookstore, counting her (pitiful) change before shoving it into her wallet. She was moving on autopilot and couldn’t have paid less attention to where she was going. Unsurprisingly, she bumped into someone not three steps out from the door.

“Sorry, she muttered, then shoved her wallet into her bag and moved to brush past the unfortunate bystander, only to have them call out after her. “Oh, um!”

Serena turned, vaguely recognizing the voice- Serena stopped halfway, tried not to gape. She was wearing a pom-pom hat over her hair, which was let down over her shoulders, and she was wearing glasses and a scarf over her nose and mouth- but she pulled the scarf down, and there was no doubt about it-

By some horrid twist of fate, Serena had managed to walk straight into Hiiragi Yuzu.

 _This is it,_ Serena thought hysterically, _This is my life now. I actually saw her later._

“Um, you were at my show last night, right? Se… Selena?” Yuzu said, oblivious to Serena’s internal monologue.

“Serena,” she managed, and Yuzu snapped her fingers.

“Oh, that’s right! Sorry, I’m usually better with names.” She smiled apologetically. “Um… So, this is kind of out of the blue, but… Any chance that you know where to get some good sweets around here?”

Serena nodded, suddenly, overwhelmingly glad that Sora was her roommate. “Yeah,” she said, aiming to sound casual and overshooting so far she looped right back around to awkwardly starstruck, “There’s a café down a few streets?”

“Great. Do you mind showing me the way? I’m a little lost, my phone is dead.” Yuzu waved her phone around with an embarrassed smile.

 _This isn’t real,_ Serena thought, _I died trying to finish this damn classical lit project and this is some deathbed hallucination_.

She led Yuzu to the café anyway. They settled down, made their order, then sat in awkward silence for a moment before-

“You said you wrote some choreography for Moonlight Rhapsody last night, right?” Yuzu asked, and Serena _really_ hadn’t expected her to remember that.

“Yeah, I built off the choreography that was in the dance shot.”

Yuzu leaned forwards, a bit of curiosity in her eyes. “Oh, so you learned the stuff from the video?”

Serena scoffed. “Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t hard or anything.”

Her brain caught up to her mouth- and great, now she sounded like a pretentious dancer that didn’t understand how hard it was to sing and dance simultaneously. “Not that it’s bad, or anything! My kind of choreography isn’t the kind you can do and still sing at the same time.”

That hadn’t fixed it, exactly, but it was enough of a save that Serena forced herself to relax before she could say anything else without thinking about it first.

“Oh, I thought so,” Yuzu replied, “I’m not a very good dancer to begin with. I take lessons, but I guess I always was better at gymnastics and cheerleading stuff.”

The waitress came back around with their desserts, setting a frankly massive parfait in front of Yuzu and a strawberry shortcake with more whipped cream than Serena knew what to do with and a melon soda in front of her. They made small talk for a little while, and Serena found herself settling easily into the most natural conversation with Yuzu she’d ever had- not, Serena thought, like there was much competition for the spot. Eventually their topic turned to why Yuzu had been wandering around town in the first place, and Yuzu admitted that she’d wanted to go sightseeing.

“So, you’re not planning on going with anyone? Sightseeing in disguise alone has to get boring, doesn’t it?”

Yuzu took a small bite of her parfait, humming thoughtfully. “Well, it’s not like I can get a boyfriend or anything, not with the whole love ban thing. The second anyone catches me with a guy that’s not my manager, the press explodes.”

Serena tried not to be disappointed, she really did. It was about as realistic as crushes got from the outset, and she knew that. She hadn’t expected anything to come of this in the first place, not really-

She took a long sip of her soda to keep from having to force out a reply anyway.

Across the table, Yuzu tapped her spoon gently on the outer rim of the parfait glass. “But you know, if it’s a girlfriend, I think I could get away with it.”

Serena choked on her drink. Yuzu didn’t notice- or, more likely, Yuzu pretended not to notice to save Serena’s feelings, as if she hadn’t embarrassed herself a hundred times over already. “I mean,” Yuzu continued, “you know how the media is.”

“Uh, right,” Serena replied. This… was not the kind of conversation that was supposed to happen in real life. Conversations like these were meant for shoujo manga and bad romance movies, not real-life cafes just off the beaten path.

Just then, the waitress stopped at their table with the bill, saving Serena from having to try and hold up her end of the conversation. “I’ll get the bill,” Serena said, only to open her wallet and see nothing but spare change. Serena was suddenly hyperaware of the bagged magazine in the seat next to her. Panic settled in. The bill was barely anything, but Serena was out of money. She had her debit card, but if she had to pay such a small bill like that, Yuzu would probably think-

“Don’t worry about it,” Yuzu said, digging around in her purse and dropping a few bills on the table, “This time it’s my treat.”

“Thanks. I’m kind of a broke college student,” Serena replied, then resisted the urge to groan. _Great selling point_.

If Serena had been talking to anyone else, there would have been an awkward silence or forced laughter. As it was, Yuzu just jumped right back into conversation, as if Serena hadn’t just ruined her nonexistent reputation.

“Hey,” Yuzu said, bright and brilliant, like she’d suddenly had an idea, “You’re from around here, right?”

Serena started to nod, then caught herself before she could descend any further into her web of lies. “I go to school here.”

“So then you definitely know where the campus museum is, right?” Yuzu said, and Serena nodded slowly, sensing where this conversation was going and not entirely sure how she felt about the outcome.

“Great!” Yuzu said, and the space between her words stretched out into a small eternity. In reality, it took about half a second. “So, would you mind showing me there? And if you’ve been inside before, maybe you could show me the highlights?”

This was impossible. Completely, utterly impossible-

No, she wanted to say, I have a project worth twenty percent of my grade due in less than forty-eight hours and really should be the responsible one in the group and actually do it. No, she wanted to say, because all I’m going to do is make a fool of myself-

But she’d already done that, and for some reason, Yuzu was _still talking to her_.

“Yeah,” was what Serena found herself saying, for once feeling that her rational side was the one in control of her mouth. “Yeah, that sounds like fun.”

Yuzu smiled at her in that bright and promising way that suddenly made Serena wonder if Yuzu hadn’t been flirting all along. “Then let’s go!” she said, and stood. Serena followed at her side, bag with the magazine forgotten. If this was the chance that bad first impressions got her, she thought, she might just have to try fumbling more of them.


End file.
